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EU heads of state and government on Friday, at a summit in Brussels, demanded more sanctions against Belarus "as a matter of urgency" and want the European Commission to tweak rules governing borders to tackle "state-sponsored smuggling".

High numbers of deaths and Covid-vaccine refusals in Russia were linked to the Kremlin's own anti-vaccine propaganda campaign, the EU foreign service said in a report Thursday. "Kremlin media continue spreading lies on Covid-19 and the vaccines, even as the death tolls in Russia are surging," it said, noting 250 anti-vaccination stories on Russian outlet Geopolitica.ru alone. Some 1,035 people a day are now dying of Covid in Russia.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman has condemned MEPs for voting a resolution to "urgently begin an impact assessment, public consultation and scoping exercise on a [Taiwan] bilateral investment agreement". "The EU parliament should immediately stop words and actions that undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Wang Webin said, Reuters reports. Almost 600 MEPs backed the motion, which comes after China blacklisted MEPs because they had criticised it on human rights.

Scientists at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) have been tracking ongoing emissions from the La Palma volcano. The Cumbre Vieja volcano eruption in the Canary Islands caused large plumes of sulphur dioxide to travel over North Africa and Europe. Those plumes travelled mainly across northern Africa and southern European countries, including Spain and Portugal, eventually reaching Belgium and the Netherlands, affecting these countries' air quality.

Polish divers have recovered the body of a 19-year old Syrian national from the river Bug on the Belarusian border, local police told the PAP news agency. "Documents were found next to the body," the police said. A second rescued Syrian man said Belarusian police officers had pushed them both into the river on Tuesday, the Polish police added. The death was the eighth confirmed one since the border-emergency began.

Syria is using currency manipulation to evade EU and UN sanctions, with the National Bank of Syria, a blacklisted entity, taking in $60m (€52m) in 2020 of the real value of aid money meant to soothe poverty in government-held areas, according to research by US think-tanks. UN contractors procured goods at the official SYP2,500/$ exchange-rate, but those dollars were worth SYP3,500/$ on the black market, in the complex scam.

Nato defence ministers in Brussels Thursday adopted a classified 'Concept for Deterrence and Defence in the Euro-Atlantic Area', designed to counter novel Russian threats, such as hypersonic cruise missiles, battlefield robots, military AI, and anti-satellite systems, Reuters reported. The renewed focus on Russia comes despite ever-growing US interest in the Indo-Pacific region. The deterrence plan also involved reacting to a potential simultaneous Russian attack in the Baltic and Black-Sea areas.

Britain has charged with terrorism the man alleged to have stabbed to death MP David Amess last week. The 25-year old Ali Harbi Ali, a Londoner who was the son of an ex-media adviser to a Somalian prime minister, "considered himself affiliated to Islamic State", a banned extremist group, British prosecutor James Cable said Thursday. Amess' family urged the British public to "set aside hatred" in its reaction.

Increasing numbers of infections in Flanders have made the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) return Belgium to 'red' again on the European coronavirus map. The Walloon and Brussels region were red zones already. A region is marked red if the infection ratio per 100,000 citizens remains between 75 and 200 and the positivity ratio is four percent - or when the infection ratio is higher then 200.

The first topic leaders discussed at the EU summit were the continent's soaring gas prices, which have lead to a spike in household energy bills - amid widespread disagreement on how to solve the issue.

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte suggested Poland's Covid-19 recovery money should not be approved until Warsaw respects the rulings of the European Court of Justice and dispels doubts about the independence of its judiciary.

EU leaders called for an "ambitious global response to climate change" to keep the 1.5 degrees global warming limit within reach - after scientists concluded that the projected global increase in fossil-fuel production for 2030 is inconsistent with this target.

Last October, the European Commission gave an optimistic outlook on the adoption of its migration and asylum pact. EU commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas said its pact on migration was lowering the landing gear - suggesting agreement was possible.

China's growing economic footprint in Ukraine may already be producing geopolitical consequences that put the country at odds with core European priorities. Volodymyr Zelensky decided earlier this year to withdraw Ukraine's condemnation of Chinese government crimes against the Uighurs.

The picturesque town of Trakai in Lithuania tells a story of well-intentioned biodiversity and green infrastructure investment nearly costing its old town one-fifth of its trees.

The European Parliament announced that Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has won the Sakharov Prize for defending human rights. The parliament's president David Sassoli wrote on Twitter: "Alexei Navalny is the winner of this year's #SakharovPrize. He has fought tirelessly against the corruption of Vladimir Putin's regime. This cost him his liberty and nearly his life. Today's prize recognises his immense bravery and we reiterate our call for his immediate release."

Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann, a fierce critic of the European Central Bank's loose monetary policy, will step down more than five years early, opening the door for Germany's new government to pick a less confrontational successor, Reuters reports. Weidmann said he would leave for personal reasons at the end of this year, just days after the ECB is set to make a decision on winding down pandemic-era stimulus.

"Hatred, violence and intolerance" were no longer hiding in the "dark corners" of the internet or secret societies, but becoming mainstream and risking the "undermining of democracy", EU equality commissioner Helena Dali told MEPs Wednesday, referring to fascist groups in Italy who recently staged anti-vaccination riots. She urged a "prompt and comprehensive response" to combat neo-nazi groups across the continent, with Italy already having arrested the leaders of one party.

The UK could soon be experiencing as many as 100,000 coronavirus cases per day, Britain's health minister Sajid Javid said on Wednesday, as the country's health service said hospitals were already on the brink with winter just beginning, Deutsche Welle reports. The stark warning came 24 hours after the UK recorded its highest Covid death toll since March.

The EU and US have "serious concerns about increasingly divisive rhetoric in Bosnia", US secretary of state Antony Blinken and EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday, alluding to secessionist talk by the leaders of its Serbian entity, Republika Srpska. "This region belongs in the European Union" they added, while urging local politicians to "resume constructive dialogue, and take steps to advance progress on the EU integration path".